Koch said one thing he and his fellow astronauts learned was that they were well trained to deal with any issues.
He said, “This mission taught me that the unknown is scarier than the known.” “Every time we accomplished the mission test objective, we all looked at each other and said, ‘That went really well.’ It was really not easy because it took a lot of work, but as a team it was easy to accomplish because we worked hard.
Landing on the Moon is “absolutely possible”
Another crew member, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, said that as NASA takes further steps into deep space, including establishing a lunar base, astronauts and the teams supporting them on the ground should be prepared for a potentially bumpy ride. And, he said, astronauts have to be willing to accept that risk.
“We have to be willing to accept a little more risk than we have in the past and just trust that we’ll figure it out in real time,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to finish everything before we go; we have to trust each other. It was very clear to us that it went really smoothly. I’m not surprised – extraordinary team. But it was also very clear to us that it could get really bumpy, very fast.”
Mission commander Reed Wiseman said he had a technological sensation 250,000 miles away from Earth. He felt a strong desire to land on the Moon, and if he had had a lander, he would have eagerly done so. The moon, he said, was there for the taking.
“It’s not — oh, I’ll eat these words — it’s not the leap I thought it would be,” Wiseman said. “If you had given us the keys to the lander, we would have taken it down and landed on the Moon. It’s going to be extremely challenging technically, but this team has to show up every day knowing that it is absolutely possible, and it is possible soon.”
<a href